Why is it that here in America we are so convinced we are entitled certain things? This “Entitlement mentality”? Now first off let me make clear that I don’t wanna spend the majority of this word hatin’ on America, and tryin’ to make us all feel guilty because we’re these big over-stuffed, rich, fortunate, lazy American pigs. I don’t believe in putting guilt trips on myself like that. Yeah, poverty and disease-stricken people in many of the other nations of the world are in crappy shape compared to this one, and yeah I care about them and their situation, and YEAH, as a matter of fact, part of my life’s goals is to help them out (Maybe I’ll write about that someday–I’ll talk to you about it if you want). BUT NO, I’m not gonna sit here and feel guilty just because I live in a blessed, free nation–that would be sheer IDIOCY. My purpose here is to get us thinking outside the box a little bit. And when we get down to the basics of HOW we view everything we have available to us, maybe we’ll appreciate it all a bit more. Maybe we’ll use what we have to better humanity as a whole. Maybe we’ll use it all more wisely. And THROUGH all this, we’ll be that much better stewards of what God has blessed us with, and we’ll be loving Him and loving others, which is our lives’ calling (Matthew 22:36-40).

Genesis 3:19 says, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread…”

What does this mean? In this passage we see that God has a new way of governing mankind, and He gave us as humans a new way to operate. It tells us that in order to live, we have to work. And look, most of us eat, or have available to us, three squares a day.

Then, what do all the commercials on TV say, in order to sell stuff? “You DESERVE this”, “You DESERVE that”, and “You’ve earned it”.

We don’t deserve crap~ What else does the Good Book say? Romans 5:8 says, “…God commendeth His love toward us, in that, WHILE WE WERE YET SINNERS, Christ died for us”.

What do we think: We live in America, so we’re OWED three meals a day? We think we’re OWED a hot shower and clothes? We think we’re OWED an education and a degree? We think we’re OWED a car?? Someone don’t got a home or something, so they say, “The government owes me money so I can live a respectable life.” That’s BS, right there. It ain’t the government’s job to give people money and provide a place to stay, healthcare, provide education and all that. Government exists for the sole purposes of PROTECTING the people that are innocent, and PUNISHING the people that are wicked. Government by its very nature sets up boundaries–it does NOT create opportunities–at least, it’s not supposed to. If we’ve learned anything from socialism and communism, it’s that “THE GOVERNMENT” (Which no one *really* knows what that phrase means these days) is not CAPABLE of providing for our needs. It is a perversion of civilized living to let the government provide living conditions and subsistance. Those that are physically able to work are to provide for themselves and their family. Those that are not able to provide for themselves are to be taken in and taken care of by family, close friends, or the church (1 Timothy 5:3-16).

Most of us have opportunities offered to us–some of them WE think are basic, and we think we are owed them. Things like hot shower, food, money, clothes, EDUCATION, cell phones, among other things. Sometimes that makes some people feel guilty. They think, “Gosh, I had so much more opportunity than this person–that makes me feel guilty. How can I go and be off and be successful when I know I had it so easy and other have had it so hard??” It’s a lie from the pits of hell from Satan, who’s trying to stifle success, creativity, and results. Instead of falling into that trap of guilt, here’s what we are to do:

We are to take advantages of opportunities we have given to us. If WE didn’t earn some of the things given to us, it means someone worked and earned it and made a way–but SOMEONE worked for it. That verse in Genesis up there tells us that hard work is required in order to live. Rather than feel GUILTY about opportunities we have, let’s accept them, use them to earn EVEN MORE THAN WE HAVE, and then give back to God and give back to humankind what we earn. Whether it be by being a full-time missionary; whether it be supporting a church or an individual missionary financially; or whether it is being a strong Christian leader in the workplace, in our families, and in our group of friends–whatever. Let’s be GOOD stewards of things GOD’S BLESSED US WITH, and let’s be good stewards with things WE HAVE EARNED by using the ABILITIES, INTELLIGENCE, SPIRITUAL GIFTS, TIME, and CREATIVITY that God blessed us with. After all, He expects us to use everything we have for His glory (Colossians 1:16). And when we are personally and individually living our lives in such a way that we have a close relationship with God Almighty, it becomes easier to WANT to use all of our resources possible to glorify Him–with all we have. We don’t have to force ourselves to want to do it when we’re close to Him–we WANT TO. And how do we use these things for His glory? What did I say earlier? Check out Matthew 22:36-40; loving God, and loving others IS THE commandment. If you are a child of God and you have the witness of the Holy Spirit living in you, when you know you’re doing it, you’re doing it. When you know you’re not doing it, you’re not doing it.

How do you have a close relationship with God Almighty? How do you have a strong desire to love Him and love others? There’s no one solution and one formula to get to that point that’s the same for everybody–EVERYBODY’S DIFFERENT! Sure, there’s lots of theologicial, religious, and Christian self-help books that might help you get there, yeah. But what’s going to take is being real with God. If you are angry with God about some things–talk to Him, tell Him about it. for Pete’s sake, what, we think God can’t HANDLE IT if we’re angry with Him? It’s…GOD. He’s after our hearts–that means ALL of our heart–ALL of our emotions. The Old Testament is full of stories of people like Job and David who all but yelled and whined and blamed God for crap in their lives–and what did God do? He loved them, He heard them, and He blessed them. But what did that take, FIRST? They had to be HONEST with Him. In some cases, He has to break our hearts. Sometimes He has to empty us out in order to fill us up with His ways. It takes constant prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17). It takes constant prayer that is honest, thoughtful, intelligent, sincere, real, and is one-on-one with God. It takes faithful, every day, little-by-little reading of His Living Word (The Bible). It takes submitting our every thought, every deed, every attitude to the obedience of Christ and keeping them pure (2 Corinthians 10:5b) Start doing those things, and He’ll make the rest clear to you–I can PROMISE you that. But you have to desire it, which becomes easier to do as you get to know Him and His character.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this word made sense, and as always, my purpose here is to get people thinking about things, and hopefully encourage people to change–my purpose is not to condemn. Also as always, if you wanna talk with me about something I mentioned here, if you wanna disagree with me, agree with me, talk about something NOT RELATED TO ANY OF THIS, tell me I’m stupid, or whatever–just tell me! I’m open to hearing you out! Let me know with a Facebook comment, AIM, phone call, MySpace comment, real-life face-to-face, xanga comment or anything else–doesn’t matter to me, just let me know. I’m ready willing and able–I might not always be able to drop everything and come runnin’, but I do wanna hear you out if you need someone to.

Lata..

Comments left by other people on this post, from original facebook Note on my “Travis J” facebook:

Tyler Moore haha, these are all long… but always good. You’re right on. Very good thoughts.

December 13, 2006 at 6:39pm ·

Austin Guidry good stuff, man.

i like your quote, “And look, most of us eat, or have available to us, three squares a day.”

yes, I definitely have 3 squares every day. I hope you meant meals, because if not, then I’m totally lost.
January 18, 2007 at 4:32pm ·

Elise Barrett first off i just gotta say…

IS THAT BITTY WEE KINDERGARTEN TRAVIS I SEE? OMG

ok, that said.. this is straight-up good stuff, and i give you mad props. i love your essays, man.
January 19, 2007 at 12:07pm ·

Man, my keyboard and brain have been calling out to me to release some thoughts for a WHILE now, but I just haven’t…hopefully the old habit’s comin’ back, and I’ll get back to posting more regularly. But hey, I had to throw myself into college first semester in order to get a feel for it, and that ate up a lot of time~

I ain’t trying to toot my own horn in these next statements, here–so just keep that in mind. As I’ve read through the Bible, and allowed God to speak to my mind and teach me, and as I continue in His Word daily, there are some verses that stick out to me. They’ve adhered themselves into my mind, and I tend to live by them:

Isaiah 1:18a, “Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord…”

John 8:32b, “…the truth shall make you free.”

Colossians 1:16, “For by Him [Jesus Christ] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and for Him…”

Matthew 22:36-40, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

2 Corinthians 10:5b, “…bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;…”

Betchu thought I was gonna say things like John 3:16, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, or some such, didn’t ya? Well you’re wrong. Although I believe 2 Timothy 3:16, which says those verses are just as God-inspired and relevant as those four up there, some verses have become too overused, mainstream, clichéd, and have sadly, lost some of their potency due to mindless repetition. I like those above verses because they challenge each and every one of us to take priority, take stock, think intelligently, and examine where we are in life, with God, and how we reason, and operate.

The verse in John and the verse in Isaiah remind us that we have brains, and we, as true Christians, need to use them! That is, these verses challenge us to identify what we think of as truth. Being Christian doesn’t have to mean opposing Science, opposing math, or opposing quote unqouote “secular subjects” just because they don’t have a “Christian” label on them. John 14:16 goes on to say that, “I [Jesus Christ] am the Way, the Truth, an the Life…”, and John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So, all that pretty much means
Jesus = Truth = The Bible
So, we say we believe those verses, but do we mean it? The truth “sets you free”. Well, the obvious thing most of us think about when we see those verses is, “Oh yeah, Jesus is truth, and His ways set us free from sin, and we get into Heaven when we die~” However, I believe it goes deeper than that. Ever notice how, in a system, whenever there’s truth, the system runs better? Think about it with friendships and relationships, and circles of friends. The ones where there’s a lot of gray area, and people are unsure what may or may not have happened at a particular event or time, people don’t know what their friends believe in, etc. etc., those are not really lasting relationships/friendships. And then, when you’ve got a system going, for, like a business or something, when you’ve got a bunch of good clean information, some nice numbers that add up, people doing their jobs, and everything operating the way its intended to, it just works better? There’s less errors, less mistakes, less mess, etc. etc.? Well, existence as we know it is governed by physical laws—which we learn about in our science books, and were set in place by God—and existence as we know it is also made up of moral laws (Spiritual laws, laws of the internal, etc., whatever you wanna call it), which were also set into place by God. The more truth we have in each of these divisions of existence, the better life goes! The better we put these truths into action, the smoother things go! Life, relationships, etc. etc., everything that’s governed by certain laws—when we go by truth, things WORK. Where do we find the physical laws? God hints at ’em in His Word, sometimes; but we, as mankind, have used the creativity and reasoning skills God gave us to identify them, and we put them in books. So where do we find the internal, Spiritual truths? We find those in the Bible. We all must read God’s Word daily. We all must talk with friends, teachers, pastors, and read theoogical books about it in order to refine and sharpen our notions of what truth is. I’ve heard it said that “Knowledge is the vehicle for change.” Could be. Change is the Christian’s lot. “Christian’ means “Christ-like”. As Christians, we are to be constantly “being transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2), and constantly putting on the mind of Christ.

The verses in Matthew challenge us to remember the loving God and loving other people are what everything comes down to. Well, what does that mean? That means seeking, desiring, and praying for the highest good for all of the people around us (1 Thessalonians 5:17, James 5:16). That means actually being concerned with the needs of other people, outside our own little selfish boxes. That’s what being a “Christian” is all about. I mean, we throw that term around a lot, a bunch of us. Particularly those of us that have attended private school, public school and church, and a private university. We say, “Oh yeah, I’m ‘a Christian’.” But, how many of us really know what that means? Well, the word “Christian” simply means “Christ-like”—and that’s what Mathew 22:36-40 is talking about. And on that note, you wanna know something? Whenever we are in a close, meaningful, heart-to-heart, eager, expectant, “keepin’-it-real” relationship with God Almighty, it becomes easier to live out of pure love. The prayers, “God, help me to be a better Christian”, and, “God, help me to be more Christ-like” aren’t necessary, because it becomes second nature to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit and the characteristics of love (Galatians 5:22-26, 1 Corinthians 13) when we know Christ on a personal, REAL level. We begin taking on His characteristics, and looking at people the same way God the Father and Jesus look at people—out of a sincere, pure love and care (1 John 4:8b). What is it that one verse says, “…be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2)? Our minds become transformed and become more Christ-like all the time if we are getting to know Christ, more. Further, that manifests itself as we love and get to know Christ and His character/nature more.

The Colossians verse reminds us that everything of this world was created by and for Christ Jesus. The 2 Corinthians verse reminds us that our internal goings-on are to be subjected to Christ, as well. That having been said, we gotta ask ourselves, “Am I living, saying, thinking, relating, working in ways that bring glory to God Almighty, since everything just goes back to Him, anyway?” Are we aware that all of the things we’re working for now, all of the results we hope to achieve, all of the goals we accomplish in the short run, all of the goals we accomplish in the long run, are all able to be—and SHOULD BE—done in ways that bring glory to the name of God Almighty?

Attending “Christian Heritage School” the past couple of years has gotten me used to the phrase, “Oh yes, the things you’re learning here, and the things you learn in DTS and SST are applicable to life, and can bring just as much glory to God, even if you’re not going to be a missionary.” I wanna prove it. And growing up in a Christian home, going to church, and attending a private school has afforded me the phrase, “God wants people to be in the workforce that love Him and make his name known, just as much as He wants people to be in the mission field to love Him and make His Name known.” I wanna live it. I love ministry. I love ministering. God has placed a desire in me to introduce people to the Gospel and make His name known among every sphere of influence I will ever have, while on this earth, based on what He has taught me to be true, and the love He has shown me in my life—AND I WANNA DO IT! I love Christian Heritage School. The school has some problems, but they are fixable. I truly believe the people that started the school, that almost all—if not all—of the teachers and faculty truly believe what they are teaching, and proclaiming, and the methods they are using to do it are good, and righteous. I love the school, and I believe the things I learned there are truth that helped me a lot, and I want more people to learn them so that our community, and our nation can be stronger. Sometimes people who’ve gone to CHS for a long time have heard the same seemingly tiring mantra over and over, and it just doesn’t seem all that real. That’s understandable. Others are simply looking at their letter grades, and just hopin’ to pass, or just hopin’ to get that “A”. Nothing wrong with that, but the concepts and principles being taught are what’re most important. The reason why I continually say I believe in that school is because I know that, personally, the many diverse facts, perspectives, and ways of reasoning I learned at that school are good, right, and effective. I learned a LOT while I was there, and it has improved my relationship with God, how I relate to other people, how I look at the world, how I process data, and how I use my understanding. If you’re focused on the school’s problems, or if you’ve grown apathetic and complacent with learning there, or if you care more about the letter grade than the principles—CHANGE, like I alluded to, above. Commit to do things a little differently, day by day. Pay attention to the teachers. Before school starts each day, stop and ask God to teach you and help you stay focused all throughout the day. Actively read the assignment(s) and do the homework, rather than mindlessly just to “get it done and over with”. Am I going to say I always did those things perfectly? Heck no. But I strove for it, and God blessed me tremendously. That’s all I wanna see happen with everyone else. Now, the school’s got some problems, but what’s easier to do, sit around sulk about them and make fun of it, or actually put forth effort to do something? Obviously, human nature’s laziness compels us to just disregard that whole “effort” thing, and sit back and do nothing. Pray for the school. Ask that God continue to bring staff, wonderful teachers, financial assistance, and for students who are interested in learning God’s ways and acting on them, TO the school. And what’s more—be one of those students, yourself! The school’s not perfect, no. The teachers and rules are not perfect, no. But there are right and wrong ways of dealing with them. What’d I say, above, about submitting your thoughts to Christ, and living/relating/doing all things in a way that brings honor to God? Yeah, ‘member that. Don’t give up on CHS, “Folks”, I haven’t. I want to continue to see it teach people and inspire people the way it did me, and I believe it can. But first, people’ve gotta stand up, pray for it, and act on it.

Now, regarding certain areas of my life, as a reflection of the things I’ve talked about, above: These days I’m at ETBU, and, yes, I want to be involved in either part-time or full-time ministry, someday. However, I also don’t wanna be an empty-pocketed, Bible-reciting robot who ends up being financially supported by a church, and ends up being a hassle to my kids or something someday, sitting in a $50,000-a-year nursing home drooling on myself while my kids try to dream up ways to scrimp up money to keep me alive longer—for God knows why. I want to minister. Part-time, full-time, I don’t know yet, but I want to do it! “It’s fun tellin’ people about Jesus!”, as I’ve heard one lady put it. But I want to make a bunch of money first, so I can do it without any debt or other worldly burdens loading down my spirit. This is why I am choosing not to spend my time seeking a Theology degree, DTS graduation, or seminary degree, or whatever. Am I saying that if you do those things, you’re going to transform into the indebted invalid I described, above? No, not necessarily—but with my luck, I prolly would~ 😛 Also, I haven’t even joined the “Baptist Student Ministries” or “Journey” stuff, and that’s where all the quote unquote “REAL” Christians go, and the Christians who are “REALLY” serious about their faith go, right? All my life I’ve done the whole, “Have a fun Christian group, have a Bible study and pray together and keep each other out of trouble” for years now—I wanna move on to the next level. Do I think the BSM is silly, or a waste of time? No! Do I think I am somehow ABOVE everything there and would never learn anything, nor have anything to contribute? Certainly NOT!—I’m not THAT arrogant. I know the BSM and Journey ain’t all about me, but that it’s about Christian fellowship and outreach, like are our modern-day churches. But I simply don’t subscribe to the school of thought that says, “You’ve gotta be in the BSM in order to be a Christian who’s ‘serious about their faith’.” I just happen to think that’s a load of BS. Now, I don’t doubt that BSM Journey groups help foster one’s faith and aid in Spiritual growth, but as I’ve said, I’ve done that type of thing for years now, and I want to move on and work towards new things, and new plateaus to reach in my faith. My goals are to bless others either directly with mission trips/outreaches, or having enough wealth to financially support ministries that I truly believe God is in that I believe make a strong impact on people—such as the “Christian Heritage School” ministry I spoke of in the preceding paragraph. Or maybe I’ll have my own ministry someday, or maybe it’ll be a combination of all of these, who knows!

Recently, I’ve been doing some reading O_____o and a resounding concept in a couple of these economics/money/career books is that we need to identify our character strengths and weaknesses. So I’ve been doing some evaluating, and truly, my language and attitudes have gone a bit downhill over the past summer and fall. Over the past fall, summer, and spring, I’ve kept my long-term goals in mind, and even refined them a bit. But if you could, please pray for me that day by day I will continue to show love to all of the people I come into contact with. I pray I can clean up my words, my thoughts, my bad attitudes. How can I logically say I believe God answers the prayer of a righteous man (James 5:16), then try to pray, when I know I haven’t been as righteous as I could’ve been? Pray that I won’t fall into the tempting trap of, “Ok, I’m gonna minister and love people one day, but RIGHT NOW, I need to…yada yada yada…” that statement is invalid, and unforunately enough, used all too often. I don’t wanna be a part of it.

Comments left by other people on this post, from original facebook Note on my “Travis J” facebook:

Cassie Ballard Lawson Wow what a grrrreat note! The Bible is full of little treasures like those verses above. Some we could say in our sleep unconscious and others we may have to just stumble on one day, but i think God will continue to allow us to find new things in every verse no matter how new it is to us, or how old.

1. What’s an easier CLEP out of the following two CLEP tests:
Biology 1406/1407 or Chemistry 1311/1312
?

2. What’s an easier CLEP out of the following two CLEP tests:
American Government – POSC 2303 or Introductory Soiciology – SOCI 1301
?

3. If I’m gonna take 5 different CLEP tests, is it better to buy a comprehensive CLEP study guide, or is it better to buy individual subject CLEP test study guides?

4. Whether I’m going to buy a comprehensive, all-subject CLEP study guide, or individual subject study guides, are the ones offered by the CollegeBoard athttps://store.collegeboard.com/
fine to get? Or, are there better ones? If so, what are they?

5. Is it better to buy CLEP study guides that were written specifically for the year I intend to take CLEP examination(s)? In this case, it would be 2007. Or, is it all right to get guide(s) from a few years back?

Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas.

Lata..

Comments left by other people on this post, from original facebook Note on my “Travis J” facebook:

Ezra 7:10, “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.”

This one’s brief:

1. Know what I notice about that? Ezra took it upon himself to grow up, be a man, and maturely chase after God’s law and wisdom for himself. He didn’t wait for a big spiritual experience to occur–he didn’t hit rock bottom morally and get slapped in the face with some horrible experiece to “wake up” and change things. He made a decision to go after God by seeking God’s law and God’s wisdom. He self-started himself to do it.

2. We need to prepare our hearts when we approach God. “..approach God? What’s that..mean..?” When we’re sitting in church listening to a sermon, when we’re listening to a worship song, when we’re having a personal quiet time or prayer time–whatever–let’s “prepare our hearts” to be enriched by the Spirit of God. Don’t halff-@$$ it, that’s just rude, and it really doesn’t help much, anyway.

Lata..

Comments left by other people on this post, from original facebook Note on my “Travis J” facebook:

Tiffany Bobbitt Hmmmmmmm
Thats pretty good. Ummmm true that we need to seek God. However, sometimes as humans we need to be “put in our place” in order to follow God fully ,so it not a bad thing to first learn that we need or understand things by being broken. 🙂

Bye Bye Friend
November 5, 2006 at 2:43am ·

Cassie Ballard Lawson Good stuff Travis… i saw the same thing when i first read that verse before i read your comment on it. The word prepared really stuck out too. It kinda like cooking food. You can’t start cooking until you’re prepared and have all the stuff you need to make it, including washing your hands (gettin clean), and without turning the oven on (letting it get hot slowly…)
Have a wonderful week! 😀

November 5, 2006 at 7:55am ·

Heather Gregory My dad always says that we need to “prepare our hearts” and on that note I think preparing our minds. Like on Sat. so many people stay up late and are only half wake when they go to church, if they even make it out of bed. So get a good nights sleep and your heart might be better equipped to learn something.

When you hear the word “Government” what do you think of? Insincere politicians? The federal government? Big buildings? Political parties, voting? The CIA, FBI, taxes and all that crap? These views of what the word “Government” implies are really limited, so wrap your mind around this Note:

“Government” essentially is direction, regulation, and restraint. In whatever way it is set up, its primary objective is to place boundaries in order to maintain a certain system/ or body of persons running properly. Basically, it does these two things:

1) Punish the wicked
2) Protect the innocent

God governs the entire universe. Don’t believe me? Read Romans 1. In there (especially around 18-21-ish), you’ll see that God created the rules and laws by which nature is “governed”. We identify some of these as “laws of gravity”, “laws of thermodynamics”, etc. You could stand on the top of a 100-story building, shake your fist in the air towards God, curl your lip, narrow your eyebrows and declare, “I have the free will to jump off of this building, and IF I WANT TO, then I have the RIGHT, so I’m gonna do it!” Okay, fine. Do it. Curse at God all you want as you attempt to break his physical law–and alas, there is your body on the ground–broken into thousands of little pieces~ Yeah, you had the right to CHOOSE to break the law of gravity that God set into place–but was it really all that smart to try to do it? Well in the same way, God also set up laws by which morality is governed, too. And we have a choice to live by THEM, as well.

Taking this view of government in mind, and acknowledging that God HAS set moral laws into place, we often get a twisted view of WHY God has laws and boundaries. We ask, “Why does God want to restrict me?”, “Why do I need to listen to what some church says and follow these commandments from the Bible?” And we start to think, “I guess religion and Christianity means you can’t have any fun.” or “I better do my religious duty and get my God-points..”

This is utter BS. The Bible makes it quite clear that the foundation of all of the moral laws God set into place is “Love”. What does this mean? It means God revealed to us in His Word (The Bible) the BOUNDARIES we shouldn’t cross because they are harmful. Just like when you try to break the law of gravity like I said above, you end up hurt when you try to break God’s moral laws. Sure we have the CHOICE to go against the ways and commands God lays down for us–BUT WHY DO IT!? It hurt us in a number of ways–physically, emotionally, etc. And they seperate us from God. It’s not a matter of God pullin’ some laws out of thin air for no reason, then saying “Don’t do this, don’t do that”, then putting them in the Bible for us to follow as some sort of religious duty that we get credits for. Let’s keep in mind that God WANTS the best for us, and WANTS us to live the “Life more abundantly” (John 10:10), but He leaves it up to us to decide whether we are going to live the smartest and best way, or if we are going to live the dumbest way.

Luckily He didn’t leave it for us to stumble along through life and guess at “The best ways to live”. He revealed the best ways to live to us in His Word. Why don’t we ever read it? People in some nations would give their right arm to read simply a PAGE of the Bible in order to hear what God has to say, while we let our 3 or 4 Bibles lay around the house and collect dust. This isn’t to poke fingers at people that don’t read their Bible often–this is to provide a perspective on the importance of doing it, and possibly trigger more of an incentive for us as Christians and non-Christians to read God’s Word.

In addition to all these things, God governs reasonably. 2 Chronicles 6:23 says, “…by requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head; and by justifying the righteous, by giving him according to His righteousness.” Lookit there~ What’d I say earlier were the two basic functions of government? “Punish the wicked” and “Protect the innocent”, right? God’s fair and just, He ain’t that “ornery Guy upstairs that sends plagues to kill people”, ya know..

Ok so I hope you enjoyed and got something out of this brief note. If you have any comments, questions, death-threats, suggestions, or anything else about this or anything else that you wanna talk about, let me know or post here or whatever. God bless.

Lata..

Comments left by other people on this post, from original facebook Note on my “Travis J” facebook:

Elise Barrett a-freaking-men.

tomorrow i will write something more coherent. but this is good stuff.
October 8, 2006 at 2:30am ·

Heather Gregory
This just reminds me of walls. Not real walls but the walls we put up as humans. Not so much walls but boundary lines. Others on the outside looking in think that these boundaries are stupid a lot of the time and what they don’t get is that the walls are protection. It’s wise to keep some people out, to protect yourself(your heart). Being physical is one thing that lets people in, so you gotta ask yourself, Do I really want to let this person in? Are they gonna cause pain and heartache in the end? (not that we can predict the future). Just repeat what one of my friends has told me, don’t truely put your trust in someone til they deserve or have earned it. That’s what I have a problem with I just trust everyone. I think they are like me and I get hurt a lot cuz i find out they often times didn’t deserve my trust, or to be inside my walls.

2 Chronicles 5:13, “It came even to pass as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, ‘For He is good; for His mercy endureth forever’: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord;…”

Sorta makes one feel convicted when you simply don’t care about praising in that way, or when you FAKE praising in that way, doesn’t it?

Love in Christ, y’all
–T-Rave

Comments left by other people on this post, from original facebook Note on my “Travis J” facebook:

Elise Barrett Makes you wonder. If we say we believe in God, but we don’t tremble in fear or find ourselves unable to keep our mouths closed about him… do we really believe?

October 7, 2006 at 1:58pm ·

Heather Gregory
One thing that really gets to me is how some people never seem to have a heart for worship. I don’t care to much for chapel, but when we sing praises to the God who made us, I join in even if I don’t know the words. Make a joyful noise right. I don’t even care if the people around me think I’m loud, and cant carry a tune, I’m not doing it for them. Right? I just know that as long as I’m around aint no rocks gonna be crying out and praising the Lord cuz of silence.

“And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of the father, and serve Him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek Him, He will be found OF THEE; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever.”
–1 Chronicles 28:10

Comments left by other people on this post, from original facebook Note on my “Travis J” facebook:

Mallari Jones Thanks for that! Good verse. Really made me think.

October 1, 2006 at 11:17am ·

Heather Gregory I sure don’t want to be cast off forever. How bout you?

I want to hold her, and catch her tearsBut she likes to think she has no fears.In spite of this, my desire to guideGrows immensly, I surely can’t hide.Why is it by nightfall my thought she invades,And forms in my mind an illogical maze?